Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Afghanistan

Over the last few days there have been signals coming from this inflamed country that negotiations with the Taliban are in the frame. I heard the words from President Karzai in a TV interview with the  BBC’s  John Simpson. Now General McChrystal has talked of negotiations. ‘ There has been enough fighting ‘, he said. You are so right General, you are so right.

Many people ask, should there have been any? Or any involving us? I know my views and have expressed them often enough. In the end it will be history which judges. History is proving a pretty hard judge on Iraq. Quite right too.

Ulster

This blog is fastideous in its neutrality on the issue of which party to vote for in the coming general election and always takes an individual view of events as they unfold. However when it comes to Northern Ireland that neutrality does not apply.

I am utterly opposed to the Unionists in whatever  form. I think their philosophy and attitude is sectarian, provocotive, unreasonable, out of date, riven with hypocrisy, laced with intolerance and in the long term utterly shot. Now they have through their obduracy run the talks with Sinn Fein over the transfer of policing and justice powers, a  necessary and obvious development of the Peace Process, into the ground.

I think the Orange Order a disgrace, their marches and outrage, their fetish with a Battle of the Boyne in 1690 utterly absurd and I hold them responsible for all the suffering of the troubles, not because they are terrorists, though some certainly were, but because without them Ireland would be a united and peaceful country. Their twisting of Christian beliefs to further their cause amounts to blasphemy.

Of course the marches should stop and of course policing and justice should be transferred. I would make it the price of Union. If they will not sign on the line with no more delay I would sever the Union and cut them adrift. We have had enough.

Obama and Lincoln

There are curious similarities between the early part of the two Presindencies. People sometimes say Obama is a President at war like Lincoln, but there is absolutely no similarity between Afghanistan or the War on Terror with the American Civil War.

Lincoln had one great objective, which for his Presidency was the central theme. It was to preserve the Union. A secondary objective as a means of strengthening the Union was to free the slaves and abolish slavery ever after. For Obama, Universal Healthcare is a defining ambition. Both Presidents met with early setbacks and were unsure of Congressional support, even from their supporters. For Lincoln the war went badly at first. There were shock defeats. Obama has had a very difficult time with the Healthcare Bill. Now he has had a shock political, not military defeat.

To re-energise his war Lincoln wanted to free the slaves, but knew he had not the votes to carry the measure through Congress.  Then he hit on an idea. Hid did have the Executive power to seize enemy property. Slaves were property. So he declared them confiscated and freed throughout the Confederacy, where he was not recognised as President and over whose affairs he had no power. A futile gesture? No, it revitalised the war and he ascended into history almost at the level of a diety. Yet it was a further two years before he got the measure through Congress to free the slaves in the Union. Because then it was clear the war would be won.

Obama is in trouble with Healthcare. So he has attacked the banks. Throughout the world he is at once a hero. His Presidency is back on track. If he sorts out the reviled bankers, curbs their greed, cuts their speculations adrift so that it cannot harm the economy, he will stand  very tall worldwide and in the U.S, very tall indeed. To resist him then may not be a good plan politically. That is when Healthcare in America will become the right of every citizen.

The Economy

There are signs of an economic upturn, including better than expected unemployment figures. So are we on the right track? It depends which economist you talk to. I am not an economist, but if you ask me the answer is no.

Let us liken the economy to a car. As it proceeds down the highway sometimes it will go faster and sometimes slower, depending on traffic conditions. Whether it goes fast or slow is not to do with the car, it is to do with the traffic. But if the car is not maintained and tuned it will splutter and stall, making  progress  in fits and starts, not because of the traffic but because of the car. Indeed other cars will pass it, leaving it way behind.

The recession was due to a collapse of world trade. This is akin to a traffic jam. Other countries have emerged quickest because their economies are basically tuned and if trade picks up so will they. The fundamentals are right. In our economy the fundamentals are wrong. Overhaul is needed, or we are destined to stutter from boom to bust while the world moves on. We have already dropped from four to six in world rankings. Another ominous, if symbolic,  sign is the news that we are having to cut our anti terrorist activities overseas due to the fall by about 20% in the value of the pound as these costs have to be paid in foreign currency. A good deal of our national and personal debt is ultimately owed overseas also. You can do the sums.

If we are to move on at the pace of the rest of the world, we have to re-model our economy. We have to save more, borrow less and earn more of what we spend. We have to cut service based costs and jobs many of which are futile and actually are a burden to the economy. Instead we have to rebuild our industrial infrastructure so that we make more of what we use creating real wealth and wealth creating jobs.

Above all we have to unravel the disaster which is the City of London. Of course it is the biggest in the world because no other country would be fool enough to have such a lunatic foundation to its economy. Who cares whether they all go abroad? The wealth it creates is illusory and described as socially useless. The cost of holding this bust casino together is real and its impact socially disastrous. Because of it day care centres are closing, libraries face the axe and we have to cut back on protecting ourselves from terrorists. How dare those oily bankers pretend there is any justification for those bonuses.

Massachusetts

I wonder if this political ‘upset’ is as unexpected as the media on both sides of the Atlantic make it out to be. We know from experience in this country that many by-election seats lost, are won back at a general election. We know also that all but two U.S Presidents did badly in the Congressional election following their inauguration. But this Senate seat was a walk in the park for the Democrats surely?

Well was it? Teddy Kennedy was a Democrat yes, but he was first a Kennedy. The Kennedys have a history of wealth, some of it of dubious origin, glamour and mis-behaviour. All of that Massacheusetts overlooked, because above all the Kennedy clan offered glamour, maverick glamour. Even when the car went over the bridge and drowned the girl, something that the Democratic party nationally could never quite forgive, Teddy was at once forgiven by the voters of his home State when he went to them in a snap election after that life changing accident.

For this senate race, critical for Barak Obama to win perhaps more for image than actual damage, the Democrats, certain of victory, fought a dull campaign on the things that needed to be done to put America right. The Republicans, expecting defeat, fought an emotive campaign about what all this putting right was going to cost in taxes, in individual freedom and in choice. Neither campaign should have had any effect on the outcome, nor would it have, bar one thing.

The Democrats chose a worthy, safe, diligent and competent woman to coast along the road to Capitol Hill. The Republicans chose a handsome, glamorous and maverick man to fight every inch of the way. That is why they won.

This answers the question ‘What happened in Massachusetts?’ It also tells the world something about the deep psyche of America.

More Haiti

The world has watched with increasing dismay as desparate Haitian people beg for food and water from correspondents who move freely in their midst, transmitting pictures to every living room on the planet, patience has turned to despair then anger. Today the papers are coming out with words like shambles and chaos.

When this news broke I listened to our own Minister for Overseas Development, Douglas Alexander, being interviewed, when he talked about co-ordinating responses and working with the U.N, the E.U and the U.S. He repeatedly emphasised co-ordination was the key. I had a sinking feeling that this was not going to work. Because like the rest of the world I had seen the pictures on TV from the news media, heard the pleas, seen the devastation and utterly appalling conditions in hospitals with no doctors, few nurses and even less medicine. I had seen too people digging at great slabs of concrete with bare hands and makeshift tools to reach the trapped survivors for whom the clock of life was ticking ever more faintly.

There was no government, no electricity, no water, no roads, no port, no food, no communications, no transport. Just a mass of traumatised, struggling, shattered humanity. In time, yes, the big set piece response with millions of tons of everything flowing night and day would be needed. But at the beginning small units working independently, travelling on foot, communicating by whistle, some with rescue capability, some with medical and first aid skills, some with water and survival rations needed to be got in fast. Central co-ordination comes later. Immediately, self contained teams working forward and linking up, independent of centralised communications, should have had priority.  

We need to learn this lesson. The tsunami was a coastal disaster leaving the interior of the affected countries and their governments untouched. Haiti is quite different . Here every element of modern life is broken or destroyed, even government. We need to learn this lesson, because if ever a terrorist group get their hands on even a small nuclear bomb, and God forbid they do, the centre of New York or Washington or Tel Aviv or Mumbai or Whitehall could be exactly the same.

America and  Haiti

There are two countries for which this event is critical. Obviously the first is Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with  a history of weak governance, oppression, poverty and suffering. Now more or less everything has gone including effective government. When the rescue is complete, the tens, now apparently hundreds, of thousands are buried and the millions fed and sheltered a complete fresh start will be needed. This should be an opportunity to lift these brave and suffering people up to a different level.

The other country is richest.  The United States. For a while now the reputation of the U.S abroad has been at the lowest level in its whole history. Some of this aprobrium is unfair. Much is not and most is its own fault. Americans like things to be simple. They also like things in absolutes. Goodies and baddies. America the righteous. Only democracy can deliver. America is never at fault. America can do as it likes.

As anyone who is acquainted with individual Americans or has travelled in that vast country and enjoyed the unusual warmth of the hospitality of its people will know, this desire to simplify everything and make it uncomplicated, sells America short. Life, the world, governance and other culture’s values are not just a list of either or. There are nuances, subtleties, bits of good and bits of bad in combination everywhere in everything.

But in Haiti now the issues are stark and simple. Life and death. Help or abandon. These are the issues dear to the heart of every American. Now the world can see America on show at its very best. Its might and power not for conquest and control  but to uplift and empower. China gained huge respect worldwide for the efficiency of its response to its own terrible earthquake. America can  now reverse the tide of criticism and show that it can use its power to rescue then rebuild a shattered nation. The lives and future prospects of the traumatised Haitians depend upon it rising to the challenge. If it does it will once again enjoy the authority in the world it has so recklessly squandered during the hapless years of Bush and the neo-cons.

Election

Gordon Brown is wooing middle class, middle England, middle income voters. This may not work. Indeed I doubt that it will. Labour faces defeat. The Tories face not winning outright. The Lib Dems face holding the balance of power. These are the dynamics of this election. To win an outright majority Cameron has to win an awful lot of seats. To lose their majority Labour does not have to lose that many. To hold the balance of power the Lib Dems need win no seats by their own effort, but quite a few may drop into their laps.

If Labour concentrate on the middle vote, they will fail. They must first secure the working class vote. Otherwise the BNP will eat into their vote and tip the seat to the Lib Dems where they are running a good second. For the Tories the problem is UKIP, especially in the heartlands. Votes for the anti-Europe party taken from the Tories where Lib Dems are a good second will tip the seat to Clegg. Where the Tories run second to the Lib Dems, UKIP will sap votes from the Tory challenge.

For Cameron to win he has to build a head of steam that sees off UKIP and the Lib Dems. For Brown to win (or not to lose outright, which would be seen as a victory) he must crush the BNP in his heartlands, see off the Scot Nats north of the border and stop the Lib Dem advance where they are close. To do all of that he must have the rock solid support of the working class of every ethnic origin from one end of the Kingdom to the other. Middle England, in this scenario is a bridge too far for Labour.

Exams

These have had an unusually high profile in the media recently due to the difficulty in getting to them or providing a venue for them, owing to the weather. There have been complaints of a lack of flexibility among exam boards in making special arrangements or deferring sittings.

I have chatted to senior students and discovered something much more fundamental. In mastering a new syllabus there appears to be mismatch between teaching, textbooks, revision and the final questions which appear. The explanation is that the test is to see whether the student can apply the knowledge to real life situations.

This blog is proud to announce its disagreement with this concept, which it considers not only demotivating for students, but barmy anyway. An exam cannot by definition provide real life situations, which have to be experienced. The better way, which by co-incidence is the old way in use prior to the unleashing of politicians and academic crackpots into the education system of our country, is to teach the knowledge and when it has been fully and exhaustively acquired, application is learned at University or in working life.

Those engaged in further education or employment say without equivocation ‘give us candidates with a thorough grounding in the basic knowledge and leave the application to us’.

Haiti Again

As a vast mobilisation of the world occurs to respond to this disaster two things are becoming clear. An event on this scale gives the U.S an opportunity to show its very best side when suddenly the giant logistical resources of the military are on offer to bring aid, rescue and medicine to the needy. Both Obama and Hilary Clinton have shown decisiveness and grasp of events, in very sharp contrast to Bush at the time of New Orleans.

The second thing, in which a lesson needs to be learned, is that while these huge resources gear up, travel, arrive and then stall before overcoming smashed communication and ravished infrastructure and command lines, terrible suffering occurs to injured survivors who have managed to escape the wreckage of their community. A new plan is needed to parachute into such disasters very early medical support and field hospital equipment and personnel. Air drops and helicopter flights of  a pathfinder nature must be organised to respond to future disasters like this. Imagine managing to crawl  from one’s collapsed home clutching one’s injured child, only to die in agony together two days later because first aid did not reach you to treat injuries which in normal times are not life threatening.

In the many interviews with ministers and other officials I listeded to on the media in the first vital forty eight hours, I must have heard the word ‘co-ordinate’ hundreds of times and the word ‘doctor’ just an handful.